Moon's Flower (Kingdom, #6)

*

Jericho stared transfixed as she became his size. Watching it from high up in his isolated castle was one thing, but to feel the rushing sound of bells whisper through the breeze, scent the rose wash of her body.

He couldn’t move, could only drink her in and wonder why it had taken them so long to meet. Light exploded from her every pore, illuminating her from within and he wanted desperately to move closer to her, just so that he could absorb it into himself.

Where Siria’s brightness was too glaring for him to gaze upon, Calanthe’s wasn’t. Lifting a hand, he swished it through the shimmering veil of her glow, dazzled by her.

And when that light faded and she stepped out, he knew he’d done right by coming here. Her smile was wide, her eyes luminescent and so blue they reminded him of cut sapphires.

Her dress was a waterfall cascade of white rose petals, billowing prettily around her lithe frame as she neared him with the hesitant steps of a doe.

He didn’t move, didn’t even talk, afraid she might try to run away. Jericho sensed that if he didn’t startle her, she would come to him. But what little he knew of fairies, he knew what she was doing was aberrant. A woodland fairy rarely socialized with anyone outside their glen.

His heart was a beating, furious thing, demanding she not leave him. Desperate for her to stay and it took everything he had not to rush her, hold her in his arms until she wanted him with the type of mad craving he felt for her.

Each step she took closer brought not only the scent of roses, but more sweet and exotic perfumes. Because wherever she moved a plethora of flowers bloomed.

Up close, her face was breathtaking. In miniature it was hard to see each and every curve and line. She had eleven freckles scattered along the bridge of her nose. A tiny mole over her lip. Impossibly long, dark lashes that feathered across her upper cheeks like a thick paintbrush.

His stomach knotted and his skin broke out in a fine sheen of sweat.

Finally she sat and he could breathe, because she was beside him. She was here, she was no longer just a dream, a desperate vision revealed in smoke that he could never have. Calanthe was right here.

She sat far enough away that they weren’t touching, but close enough that the air tingled between them. Her hand landed just inches from his own, her fingers stretched out so far that if he really wanted to, he could very easily trace their delicate length.

“I do,” she said.

And he frowned, because for a second he’d completely forgotten what they were speaking about. Quickly he ran through their conversation, realizing she was answering his last statement of wanting to leave.

She shrugged and he inhaled her heady, delicious scent so deep into his lungs he knew that smell would haunt him forever. “Or rather, I did.” She looked up shyly beneath her lashes, and his heart bumped.

But she didn’t give him a chance to contemplate the meaning behind that, when she was asking a question. “What are you doing here, human? A fairy’s glen is not the easiest place to find. Not unless you know where to look.”

His lips twitched. Her innocence was so refreshing. Siria was conniving artifice, Calanthe while much more bold than the average flower fairy, was in so many ways, quite na?ve.

“You brought me here, Calanthe,” he said it boldly, ignoring the nerves stringing his gut taut.

Her fine-boned features frowned. “Me?” She patted her chest. “But I’ve never seen you before.”

Unable to keep from touching her a second longer, he traced the curve of her jaw with the pad of his thumb. Her skin was so much softer than he’d thought it would be, in fact, it reminded him of what it felt like when he traced the petal of a rose.

Eyes grown huge in her face, she stared at him and he wondered if she’d ever been touched like this before.

Wrapping her hand around his wrist, she held on. He half expected her to ask him to release her, or for her to eventually let him go. But her fingers were curled and her breathing was hard.

He licked his lips and her eyes zoomed in on the action.

“Who are you?” she whispered.

Being who he was, he understood time. Understood that he had only an hour left before he’d be banished back to his lonely castle. She was letting him touch her, in fact, he sensed she might even let him do more.

And he was tempted.

Goddess was he tempted.

But he wanted to know Calanthe more than just physically, he wanted to know her viscerally. Wanted to understand her in a way no one else did. Wanted her to know him in the same way.

That’s why he forced himself to scoot back, forced his hand away from her, and shuddered at the loss of it. When he looked at her, she too looked just as affected as he’d been. Licking her lips and frantically toying with the end of her braid.

“You know me, Calanthe. You brought me to life,” he forced the words past a throat thick with desire.